I can't stand Trump, and you can't stand Clinton. Who would be a logical choice for us if we could have only one person as president? This is a big problem when both candidates are equally easy to hate?
Over the years, Clinton has been pilloried by the GOP and lied about at every turn. But she had done little to make things better for herself, and has only reinforced the lies told about her. But Trump is no paragon of honor, as he has been in bed with foreign powers who are no friends of the USA. Even in this paragraph, you can sense a very slight bias towards Clinton - but not a bias I'd have if the GOP put up a more honorable candidate.
Recently, Clinton was diagnosed with pneumonia. Her surrogates covered up for her instead of telling the truth and letting the chips fall where they may. As a result, her health has become an issue for the campaign. Gone are the days that Kennedy could hide his Addison's disease. Gone are the days that Wilson could hide an almost fatal stroke. And gone are the days that FDR's polio related paralysis would be ignored by the press. The health of a potential president is very important to us.
Given Trump's doctor's note, I feel that the note was in effect written by Trump himself. Even a 12th grader would use more adult language than was on the note. (Trump's speeches have been analyzed, and they are at a 4th grade level. What does this say about the doctor's note?) With Trump calling for full disclosure by Hillary, but not being willing to do so himself, there is little reason to consider him an honorable candidate for president.
So where does this leave us? We do have a choice - the Libertarians and their candidate, Gary Johnson. No, I don't expect him to win. But I do expect him to be able to throw a monkey wrench into this election. Voting Libertarian is the best way of saying "NO!" to both parties and their corruption. Once they start getting some victories, it will be much harder for the duopoly to keep this third party off the ballot. And with victories will come change.
Some people will say that Johnson should have known about Aleppo. Yet, how many of us remember that Syrian city unless it is in the news? I can't fault him for being forgetful - he doesn't have the luxury of big staffs like the Democrats and the GOP can provide for their candidates. At least, he has a coherent philosophy. And if by some miracle he won our nation's highest office, I'm pretty sure that Willie Nelson, Snoop Dogg, and Bill Maher would be there at the swearing in ceremony - as well as the unofficial "after party". (I'd love to be there for that one!)
We have a lot to think about before November 8th. And I hope that either one of the major party candidates shows him/herself worthy of high office. Or I hope that the Libertarians would finally come of age and win something....
I don't think that most people realized what happened when Fox limited the "adult clown debate" to the top 10 contenders for the GOP nomination. By creating two levels of debates, they marked several serious contenders for the nomination as irrelevant before the bulk of campaigning had even started. Worse yet, the GOP delegated the task of culling out weak candidates to an interested, non neutral organization whose business should be reporting the news (with appropriate spin) and not being involved in the process of making the news itself.
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Currently, the joker in the deck is Donald Trump. He has the ability to foul up the GOP's chances for victory, as he can set the tone for the party well after the campaigns would normally be tacking back to middle ground to attract the interest of independent voters. Trump's success is easy to explain - he has gathered the interest of voters who believe that the 2 mainstream political parties no longer listen to the true wishes of the people. And in many ways he is right.
The way I view Trump's election bid is simple - it started out as a great publicity gimmick to promote Trump's other ventures. One problem - he didn't expect to succeed as well as he has done so far, and he's now caught in his own trap - he must make a serious run for an office that I don't think he wants to hold. He is now caught by his own words - he has to break the logjam that the two party system has made in Washington for his reputation to be preserved. So he has to learn how to tone down the BS and Bluster, and start saying things with real meaning. This is going to be hard for the greatest snake oil salesman alive in this country today.
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If Trump ends up making a 3rd party run for the presidency, I expect that he will not get on the ballot in all 50 states. This might not be as big a problem as it sounds. As long as we use the electoral college to perform the real election of the president, it is possible for a person to win the office of POTUS with the votes from a handful of states.
This brings us to examining previous 3rd party runs for POTUS. The most recent run that had any chance of success was H. Ross Perot's run - and he failed miserably. However, is we look back to the election of 1912, all hell broke loose when Teddy Roosevelt ran against Taft and Wilson. (And there were 2 other viable candidates, one of them being the Socialist, Eugene V. Debs.) Although Taft and Roosevelt had more votes than Wilson, the disunity in the "Republican Tribe" gave the election to the Democrats. And this is what the kingmakers in the GOP fear most.
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As for me, I like what I've seen so far. Trump is exposing the hatreds at the core of the GOP base, and the elders running the party machine don't like it. Trump's candidacy is going to bring a breath of needed fresh air to the GOP - and may finally force its leaders to rectify the mistake made when it chose the "Southern Strategy" of appealing to religious fundamentalists and racists during Nixon's reign.
I hope this happens. It would be nice to see a conservative party that only focuses on economic conservatism for a change....
